


Love and Reason

by PumpkinButter



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Literature, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:22:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinButter/pseuds/PumpkinButter
Summary: You and Hosea are kindred spirits, with a flair for the dramatic and a love of Shakespeare. When celebrating together after a successful con, Hosea reveals his heart to you, certain that you will not reciprocate. But “love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind…”
Relationships: Hosea Matthews/Reader
Kudos: 14





	Love and Reason

_“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” ___

____

\- _Much Ado About Nothing_

____

The wagon, the back filled with crates and boxes of expensive loot, is tucked away now in the middle of a dense forest, far from the city where it had originated. You sit at the front of the wagon, beside Hosea in the driver’s seat, laughing as you recall the specifics of your con. He pours you both a slug of whiskey into a tin cup.

____

“What should we drink to?” he asks.

____

“To parting fools and their money.”

____

Hosea smiles and taps his glass to yours. “You did quite well out there,” he says. “We need to start bringing you along for cons like this more often. Your talents are highly underutilized.”

____

“Ah,” you wave away the praise, “Karen’s still got me beat. In talent and, well…” She rolled her eyes, “ _talent_.”

____

He chuckles. “It’s a young man’s folly to believe that particular talent will always be the kind of distraction they need. Make no mistake: Karen’s a natural-born actress. She can make them look,” he places his hand on your shoulder beside him, “but you make them _listen_.”

____

You smile down into your glass. Praise from Hosea was always specific, always genuine, and very rare. “Thank you. I suppose I’d rather be listened to, in any case. Let Karen be the pretty one.”

____

His hand covers yours on the wagon seat. “Now,” he says, chiding gently, “you don’t give yourself near enough credit.”

____

You feel the color rise to your cheeks from his words, the touch of his hand. You parry the compliment away the only way you can think of, that language that you shared between you like a million secret codes. “ _Call you me fair? That ‘fair’ again unsay_.”

____

He answers back immediately, almost as if he was ready. “ _How can these things in me seem scorn to you, bearing the badge of faith to prove them true?_ ”

____

You shake your head at him. “And what badge of faith might that be, Demetrius?”

____

His eyes, deep blue and clear, lock on to yours. There is something in them. Hope. Wonder. “I feared being too obvious,” he said, no longer playing with her. “Perhaps I should have been more forthright from the start.”

____

In the moment that it takes for his meaning to dawn on you, he drops his gaze, embarrassed, and pulls his hand from yours. “Hosea…” you say, unsure of what to tell him, of where to begin.

____

“Don’t…don’t mind me, dear.” He offers a transparent smile: window dressing, nothing behind it. “I’m afraid I’m more of a fool than I thought.”

____

“No,” you insist, and his eyes are on you once again. “I-I mean… You’re not.”

____

“You’re being awfully kind, but—”

____

“If you are,” you cut him off and now it is your turn to reach over beside you, taking his hand in yours, “then I am, too.”

____

For a long moment you studied one another, eyes searching eyes, your expressions trying to communicate what words could not. You had kept the words locked in your heart for so long, you realized, that they would not come out right away.

____

Hosea looks down at your hand on his, turns his wrist so that your palms touch and your fingers entwine.

____

( _And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss_.)

____

“Are you sure?” he says. He says it like you want to do something dangerous, something regrettable.

____

You want to allay his fears, soothe his troubled brow, make him stop looking at you like you’re some precious thing when you know that it’s you who is unworthy. You smile at him, kindly but sadly. “Don’t let this be the first time you doubt my judgement, Hosea.”

____

“If I don’t,” he says with a wry smile, “I fear you’ll doubt mine. The truth is I—,” he confesses, “I’ve thought of you softly for a long while now. Just an old con’s crooked heart playing tricks on him, I thought. I hadn’t hoped, not really. Reason wouldn’t allow me to.”

____

( _Love and reason_ …)

____

His face is thoughtful, far away. “My dear, there’s nothing I can ask of you that wouldn’t feel like robbing you of something better with someone else.”

____

( _…keep little company together nowadays_.)

____

“Hosea,” you say, bringing those lovely eyes back to you once again. You hope he hears you, your full meaning, your whole heart, as you say to him, “Who else but you?”

____

When he smiles this time, there is no sadness behind it, no melancholy thoughts of some other distant lover. You wish you could preserve that smile forever. You do the next best thing, leaning in through the small distance between you, slow and hesitant. Hosea reached up, the lightest touch of his fingertips on your cheek. To hold you? Stop you? Urge you on? But his eyes close as yours do and you touch your lips to his, soft and searching.

____

(… _like fire and powder_ …)

____

His mouth presses to yours, earnest now in his wanting. The fingertips on your cheek touch more firmly now, pulling you to him.

____

(… _which, as they kiss, consume_.)

____

The distance between you closes, body to body, heat to heat. You kiss him like you could not bear to be parted from him again. He kisses you like this is the first time and the last, searching for every new sensation and etching it to memory.

____

His hands find your waist; fingers lock at the small of your back and pull. You are swept up onto his lap, knees resting beside his hips, and you gasp into the kiss.

____

Hurriedly he breaks away. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking stunned at himself. “I—”

____

You smile at him, at that fire edged with gentleness. He had always been a man of great contradiction: as cunning as he was kind, as calm as he was deadly. You hold his face between your hands, slide your hands down to his chest, where you feel his heart beating hard. “I want you to have me,” you whisper, “as you want me.”

____

Your words and your touch draw a sigh from him. “God help me, I want you.”

____

His kiss now is all fire, no hesitation left. His fingers run through your hair, down the nape of your neck, trace around your spine. You shift against him, feeling his desire beneath you, and he inhales sharply at the friction.

____

“Here?” he asks you.

____

“Here,” you whisper. “Now.”

____

You move from him just for a moment to reach between you. His eyes close as your hand snaps open the fastenings of his trousers. Slowly, you move his clothes aside, revealing him hard for you and straining in your hand. He pulls you back to him, eager, almost greedy now, your touch drawing him out of himself. You can’t wait for all of his reluctance to leave him, for him to know that your desire matches his, beat for beat, syllable for syllable.

____

Gathering your skirts up and aside, you straddle him again, your chest flush with his as you position yourself over him. He kisses your chest, your collarbone, up to your neck, whispering your name like a mantra. Finally, his hands seize your hips, and urge you down. You feel him against you, roll your hips so that the tip of his cock lines up with your entrance. A whispered curse escapes him with a gasp as you take him inside you, and more, and more. He fills you, fits you, and when you are joined completely, he looks into your eyes with more adoration than you ever thought possible. “You beautiful thing,” he whispers.

____

“Take me,” you tell him, your voice a breathy gasp in his ear. “Show me how you want me.”

____

He lifts you up, slowly, both of you gasping as he moves against you, then pulls you back down hard as he raises his hips to meet you. Your bodies crash together, pleasure doubled then redoubled as he lifts you again and brings you down to him. Before long he’s taking you at a tortuous pace: long, slow, hard thrusts that drew out every sensation into long, slow moments that lasted forever and not near long enough.

____

You moan with every motion, kiss him open-mouthed and greedy. “Faster,” you whisper, “please.”

____

Hosea obliges you, his grip tightening on your hips. “Yes,” he groans, “beautiful.” Words fail him; he kisses you everywhere his hungry mouth can reach.

____

( _He took the bride about the neck_ …)

____

He grasps at you as though to feel every part of you: your waist, your breasts, your back, your hair.

____

(… _and kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack_ …)

____

His body slams into yours, flesh to flesh, soaked with desire.

____

(… _that at the parting all the church did echo_.)

____

“Yes.” The word is pulled from you, and another, and another. Your cries pierce the night, louder and louder, only the forest around to hear. “Oh, yes. Yes. Hosea. Oh, God. Oh, my love…”

____

You feel close, and he feels you nearing your peak. He quickens again, both of you gasping for breath, sweat slicking brows, lips and tongues and teeth crashing together. You cry out as the coil inside you finally snaps and you reach your pleasure. You clench around him, hands fisting in the shoulders of his shirt, body going tight and trembling as your orgasm pulses through you in waves.

____

Hosea gasps and cries out as you come down, and pulls you off him, settling you down on his lap as he spills his seed over himself.

____

He looks up at you as though you are a dream, too beautiful to be real, ready at any moment to slip from his grasp and disappear at first light. You hold him to you, assuring him that this was no dream, no shadows playing across the night sky. It was real, it was you, and it was him, and you were here—then, now, always.

____

Together you ride out the high of your bliss, and settle into one another’s arms in an embrace. Hosea strokes your hair and paints kisses over your brow, down your cheek, cupping your chin to lift your lips to his, gentle and sensual. His eyes shine, almost mischievous. “ _For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me_?”

____

You smile. You know the reply, and you tell him the answer. “ _All of them together_.”

____

**Author's Note:**

> My dear friend @12TimeTraveler lamented the lack of Hosea x Reader content, and so I came up with this in response. I love Shakespeare, and I love the idea of Hosea and his love interest quoting Shakespeare at one another constantly, spontaneously reciting whole scenes, driving everyone else in camp insane. Let me know what you think!


End file.
